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What’s Wrong with the Way We Work | The New Yorker
by J.C. DE MARTIN Aug. 27, 2021

Aug. 27, 2021

“Four in five hourly retail workers in the United States have no reliable schedule from one week to another. Instead, their schedules are often set by algorithms that aim to maximize profits for investors by reducing breaks and pauses in service.” https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/01/18/whats-wrong-with-the-way-we-w… (Sent from my wireless device; please excuse brevity and typos (if any))

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The All-Seeing "i": Apple Just Declared War on Your Privacy - by Edward Snowden - Continuing Ed — with Edward Snowden
by J.C. DE MARTIN Aug. 26, 2021

Aug. 26, 2021

https://edwardsnowden.substack.com/p/all-seeing-i (Sent from my wireless device; please excuse brevity and typos (if any))

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Walmart Opens Local Delivery Service to Other Retailers
by Luigi Scorca Aug. 25, 2021

Aug. 25, 2021

https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/walmart-opens-local-delivery-service-to-ot…

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Facebook mi ha detto che ho ‘incitato all’odio’: pretendo mezzi più efficienti per filtrare
by 380° Aug. 25, 2021

Aug. 25, 2021

Buongiorno, Facebook è un servizio pubblico di informazione?!? «Facebook mi ha detto che ho ‘incitato all’odio’: pretendo mezzi più efficienti per filtrare» di Riccardo Orioles, 25 Agosto 2021 https://www.ilfattoquotidiano.it/2021/08/25/facebook-mi-ha-detto-che-ho-inc… --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8--- [...] sono stato radiato da Facebook per una settimana, con la motivazione che “incitavo all’odio”. Sono un anziano giornalista, ho settant’anni e esercito questo mestiere da quaranta. Non ho mai incitato all’odio nessuno, e in questo caso mi ero limitato a ripubblicare un mio vecchio articolo del 2003 in cui esprimevo motivate critiche ai talebani e ai governi Usa, saudita e pakistano. [...] L’azienda Facebook, in altre parole, non è malvagia. E’ semplicemente inefficiente. Sarebbero affari suoi, se si trattasse di un’azienda qualunque. Ma così non è. E’ il principale mezzo d’informazione nel territorio italiano (che nominalmente garantisce, per Costituzione, la piena libertà d’informazione) e lo è nel momento in cui l’informazione televisiva è monopolizzata da un’azienda privata (Mediaset) e quella stampata da un’altra azienda privata (Repubblica-Corriere e soci) [...] se un servizio pubblico essenziale deve continuare ad essere gestito fuori da ogni responsabilità e controllo da imprenditori privati, allora facciamo l’ultimo passo, per coerenza: privatizziamo i carabinieri, l’esercito, i magistrati e tutto il resto. In fondo, privatizzando e rendendo monopolistica l’informazione tv, stampata e adesso anche social, vogliamo arrivare esattamente a questo. E allora coraggio, che aspettate? --8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8--- Orioles /sembra/ dirlo come una provocazione ma è ovvio che da tempo gli oligarchi terrestri ci stanno pensando seriamente... anche se NON sembrano privatizzazioni... lo chiamano modello “multistakeholder” :-D Ah, l'articolo di incitazione all'odio (del 2003) censurato da Facebook è questo: «Talebani, Usa e Arabia Saudita. Le radici di una tragedia che colpisce milioni di uomini e donne» https://www.articolo21.org/2021/08/talebani-usa-e-arabia-saudita-le-radici-… Inizia così: «Al Qaeda non nasce dalle bidonvilles. E’ una corrente di palazzo di uno dei paesi più aristocratici del mondo, l’Arabia Saudita.» Saluti, 380° P.S.: e sì, il sistema di filtro e censura di Facebook è deficiente, talmente deficiente da essere ormai palesemente molesto /anche/ per chi, come me, non frequenta Facebook. -- 380° (Giovanni Biscuolo public alter ego) «Noi, incompetenti come siamo, non abbiamo alcun titolo per suggerire alcunché» Disinformation flourishes because many people care deeply about injustice but very few check the facts. Ask me about <https://stallmansupport.org>.

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On the Opportunities and Risks of Foundation Models
by Giuseppe Attardi Aug. 23, 2021

Aug. 23, 2021

Rapporto di 200 pagine dal nuovo Center for Research on Foundation Models di Stanford. I Foundation Model sono una generalizzazione dei Language Models (es. GPT-3), allenati su una larga scala di dati, adattabili a un’ampia varietà di compiti. In particolare il rapporto affronta gli impatti sociali di tai modelli, ossia: (i) the harms with respect to inequity and misuse, (ii) the impact with respect to the economy and environment, and (iii) the broader considerations with respect to the law and ethics https://arxiv.org/pdf/2108.07258.pdf <https://arxiv.org/pdf/2108.07258.pdf> — Beppe

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Conspiracy theories aside, there is something fishy about the Great Reset | openDemocracy
by J.C. DE MARTIN Aug. 23, 2021

Aug. 23, 2021

È piuttosto interessante vedere come il modello “multistakeholder”, nato - credo - in ambito “Internet governance”, stia diventando il paradigma per la “governance” del mondo tout court: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/oureconomy/conspiracy-theories-aside-there… jc (Sent from my wireless device; please excuse brevity and typos (if any))

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In a world first, South Africa grants patent to an artificial intelligence system
by don Luca Peyron Aug. 23, 2021

Aug. 23, 2021

The patent—which was filed by an international team of lawyers and researchers led by the University of Surrey's, Professor of Law and Health Sciences, Ryan Abbott —is for a food container based on fractal geometry. This container was designed and created by an AI called DABUS ("device for the autonomous bootstrapping of unified sentience"). https://www.surrey.ac.uk/news/worlds-first-patent-awarded-invention-made-ai… https://theconversation.com/in-a-world-first-south-africa-grants-patent-to-… _________________________ don Luca Peyron Direttore Ufficio per la Pastorale Universitaria Arcidiocesi di Torino www.universitari.to.it via XX settembre 83, Torino tel. 011 5156239

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Apple photo-scanning plan faces global backlash from 90 rights groups | Ars Technica
by J.C. DE MARTIN Aug. 22, 2021

Aug. 22, 2021

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/08/apple-photo-scanning-plan-faces… (Sent from my wireless device; please excuse brevity and typos (if any))

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Surveillance and capture: Two models of privacy (Philip E. Agre)
by 380° Aug. 21, 2021

Aug. 21, 2021

Buongiorno, grazie infinite a J.C. De Martin che con la sua segnalazione [1] della /mitica/ quanto negletta persona di Philip E. Agre mi ha dato l'opportunità di leggere il suo *splendido* saggio «Surveillance and capture: Two models of privacy», 1994 disponibile sia su Sci-Hub: https://sci-hub.st/10.1080/01972243.1994.9960162 che qui, ripubblicato in The New Media Reader nel 2003: https://blogs.commons.georgetown.edu/cctp-506-spring2018/files/2015/12/51-a… Venti anni prima che Vincent Mosco descrivesse la vendita delle informazioni ai pubblicitari come "surveillance capitalism" e 25 anni prima di Shoshana Zuboff col suo famosissimo libro, Agre descrive le questione della privacy come dialettica tra metafore visuali (surveillance) metafore linguistiche (capture): --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8--- Abstract: Two models of privacy issues are contrasted. The surveillance model employs visual metaphors (e.g., "Big Brother is watching") and derives from historical experiences of secret police surveillance. The less familiar capture model employs linguistic metaphors and has deep roots in the practices of applied computing through which human activities are systematically reorganized to allow computers to track them in real time. The capture model is discussed with reference to systems in numerous domains. --8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8--- Ecco i due modelli "affiancati" (estratto da pag. 23): --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8--- Let us review the definitions of these models, recalling once again that they are intended as metaphor systems and not as mutually exclusive categories: (1) The surveillance model employs visual metaphors, most famously Orwell's "Big Brother is watching you"; the capture model employs linguistic metaphors by means of various grammars of action. (2) The surveillance model emphasizes nondisruptive, surreptitious data collection; the capture model describes the readily apparent instrumentation that entails the reorganization of existing activities. (3) The surveillance model is concerned to mark off a "private" region by means of territorial metaphors of "invasion" and the like; the capture model portrays captured activities as being constructed in real time from a set of institutionally standardized parts specified by the captured ontology. (4) The surveillance model depicts the monitoring of activity as centrally organized and presumes that the resulting information is centrally stored; the capture model emphasizes the locally organized nature of contests over the capture process and their structuring within particular institutional contexts. (5) The surveillance model takes as its prototype the malevolent political activities of state organizations; the capture model takes as its prototype the quasi-philosophical project of ontological reconstruction undertaken by computer professionals in private organizations. --8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8--- É un saggio /molto/ denso, con numerosi richiami a ricerche e progetti informatici e anche a questioni filosofiche con riferimenti diretti ad Heidegger e - indirettamente - a Foucault, quindi un saggio praticamente *impossibile* da riassumere perché non-riassumibile. Tuttavia, tra le molte cose trattate, mi permetto di evidenziare il capitolo "Grammars of Action" (pag. 8) - che nel modello "capture" sono centrali - ed in particolare di quel capitolo: --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8--- [...] The capture model describes the situation that results when grammars of action are imposed upon human activities, and when the newly reorganized activities are represented by computers in real time. It is convenient to subdivide this process into a five-stage cycle. This division is, of course, a great oversimplification: The phases frequently operate concurrently, advances in one phase may force revision of the work done in an earlier phase, and work in each stage draws on a wide range of sociotechnical advances not necessarily related to the other stages. The five main stages are as follows: • Analysis. Somebody studies an existing form of activity and identifies its fundamental units in terms of some ontology (entities, relations, functions, primi tive actions, and so forth). This ontology might draw on the participants' terms for things, or it might not. Programming languages and systems analysis methodologies frequently supply basic ontologies (objects, variables, relations) upon which domain-specific ontologies can be built. The resulting ontologies are sometimes standardized across whole institutions, industries, or markets. • Articulation. Somebody articulates a grammar of the ways in which those units can be strung together to form actual sensible stretches of activity. This process can be complicated, and it often requires revision of the preceding ontological analysis. It is typically guided by an almost aesthetic criterion of obtaining a complete, closed, formally specified picture of the activity. • Imposition. The resulting grammar is then given a normative force. The people who engage in the articulated activity are somehow induced to organize their actions so that they are readily "parsable" in terms of the grammar. The "somehow" is typically both social (explicit procedures backed up by certain relations of authority) and technical (whether through machinery or simply through physical barriers); participants in the activity may or may not participate in the process and may or may not resist it. Institutions frequently impose grammars on activities for reasons other than real-time capture—for example, for security, efficiency, protection from liability, and simple control. • Instrumentation. Social and technical means are provided, whether through paperwork or machinery, and potentially with a complex division of labor, for maintaining a running parse of the ongoing activity. This phase may coincide with the imposition phase, or it may follow by years or decades. Afterward, the participants begin, of necessity, to orient their activities toward the capture machinery and its institutional consequences. • Elaboration. The captured activity records, which are in economic terms among the products of the reorganized activity, can now be stored, inspected, audited, merged with other records, subjected to statistical analysis, employed as the basis of Pareto optimization, and so forth. Likewise, concurrent computational processes can use captured records to "listen to" the ongoing activities for purposes of error detection, advice giving, performance measurement, quality control, and so forth. These additional processes might arise simultaneously with the instrumentation phase, or they may accumulate long afterward. --8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8--- Ho la netta sensazione che questa analisi aiuti anche a comprendere /come/ l'informatica sarà uno strumento per ristrutturare i rapporti di potere tecnici, sociali, economici e politici così come li conosciamo oggi. OK smetto qui che è meglio :-D Saluti, 380° [1] https://server-nexa.polito.it/pipermail/nexa/2021-August/022080.html -- 380° (Giovanni Biscuolo public alter ego) «Noi, incompetenti come siamo, non abbiamo alcun titolo per suggerire alcunché» Disinformation flourishes because many people care deeply about injustice but very few check the facts. Ask me about <https://stallmansupport.org>.

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Computer quantistici, trovato un modello che supera Google
by don Luca Peyron Aug. 21, 2021

Aug. 21, 2021

Due notizie in una: da un parte il bel passo in avanti per la comunità scientifica e non solo rispetto alla tecnica in sè, dall'altra il fatto che il comunicato stampa debba riportare il raffronto con Google. Per avere spazio in pagina? Per dire siamo Davide contro Golia? Per segnare un territorio? Per... mettete voi il seguito che intuite. Un segnale, tra i molti, per dire dove stiamo. Buona lettura dl https://www.cnr.it/it/comunicato-stampa/10520/computer-quantistici-trovato-… _________________________ don Luca Peyron Direttore Ufficio per la Pastorale Universitaria Arcidiocesi di Torino www.universitari.to.it via XX settembre 83, Torino tel. 011 5156239

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